Quick Links: Falling Cow, etc.


Woman Avoids Falling Cow
If Sally Brown hadn't moved when she did, she would have been hit by a cow that had tumbled 50ft off a cliff above her.

Man Claims Penis Pump is a Bomb
Madin Azad Amin really didn't want his mother to know he'd packed a sex toy for his trip to Turkey. So he told officials it was a bomb.
(Thanks, Big Gary C)

Cows Have Accents
A group of British farmers claim that their cows moo with regional accents.
(Thanks, Beverley.)

Man Survives 1000m Fall
A South African man survived a 1000m fall almost uninjured when his parachute failed to open on his first ever jump.

Animals Law/Police/Crime Sex/Romance

Posted on Thu Aug 24, 2006


Comments

The cow dialect myth is busted here:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003494.html

It's from a press release cooked up on behalf of a cheese manufacturer, West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers, to publicize their regional varieties of cheese. The scientist in the article claims he was at best misquoted and at worst totally used.
Posted by Greg  on  Thu Aug 24, 2006  at  09:29 AM
The idea that cows would pick up the accent of their farmer made me laugh out loud. I think it's likelier that the farmers have picked up their regional dialect and accent from the cows.
Posted by rikitara  on  Thu Aug 24, 2006  at  10:46 AM
HAHAHA :lol: I was cracking up at the guy with the penis pump! That must have been a bad situation, and the easy way out was to tell them he had a bomb. Like the truth won't ever come out to his mother that way...
Posted by Archibold  on  Thu Aug 24, 2006  at  12:27 PM
I empathize with Sally Brown. Back in September 1984 I was in New York City, and if I hadn't moved, 17 years later I would have been hit by a falling World Trade Center.
Posted by Big Gary  on  Thu Aug 24, 2006  at  01:27 PM
The parachute article sounds a bit odd, but it is probably just poor reporting by someone unfamiliar with skydiving.

I assume the jumper was on a static line - 3500ft makes sense. Line twists are very common with static line jumps (voice of experience) and will come out on their own, but the jumper would be trained to speed it up a bit by kicking. A line over is something quite different and is maybe what happened. Line overs cannot be corrected and the only option is to deploy the reserve. Maybe both happened. Jumpers are trained to look up after 5 seconds to check the canopy, but sometimes the line twists are so tight you cannot lift your head (experience again). It is quite possible he was scared and that may have inhibited his ability to react properly.

He should have had an AAD that should fire off the reserve if his descent rate was too high at around 1000ft. Maybe that malfunctioned too.

I have seen someone hit the ground hard following a big malfunction, but I doubt it was as fast as the article suggests. He was in a lot of pain for a few weeks after.

Glad to hear he is OK
Posted by Richard  on  Fri Aug 25, 2006  at  11:08 AM
Falling cow? what, was the victim in an episode of "Earthworm Jim"? Someone always got a cow on top of them in the end of each show.....

As to falls, some amazing survivals have occurred in those; I suppose it balances out such cases as the first man to go over Niagra Falls in a barrel who slipped on an orange peel here in this city and died, and Mr. Pinkerton, who simply stumbled, bit his tongue, and died of gangrene. ( The former I know to be true - It's on the gravestone and is public recored here in NZ, though the latter is not fully confirmed I don't think )
Posted by DFStuckey  on  Sun Aug 27, 2006  at  12:54 AM
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